What To Do With Extra Money For Charter Schools
UPDATED 1/18/12 8:31 a.m.
There’s an account overflowing with money, and the wants to use it to help fund school facilities. But lawmakers have their eye on some of that $5 million for other things.
The account is actually a reservoir in the state treasury for any legislative appropriation to public charter schools, based on projected enrollment, that exceeds the actual enrollment in a given school year. The fund is capped at $5 million. That money is to be used whenever the projected enrollment actually exceeds the legislative appropriation in a given year.
But the over-projected enrollment fund is overflowing its $5 million cap, which means any excess is redirected back to the state’s general fund.
That money could be better used to help struggling schools procure or maintain their buildings, though, said Roger McKeague, administrative office director, during a budget briefing Tuesday. It was his only budget request.
“It wouldn’t cost the state any more money,” explained Bob Roberts, the Charter School Administrative Office’s chief financial officer. “We’re just saying, let’s use money that’s already there to solve a problem that exists right now.”
But at least one lawmaker has her own plans for that money.
Sen. Jill Tokuda wants to use some of it — maybe $1 million, she said — to help pay for an impending overhaul of the entire state charter school system.
“Whenever you have a pot of available resources, you’re going to have people with ideas for how to use it,” Tokuda said. “Even I have a request in for the use of that money.”
If charter schools are hoping to find a sustainable funding source for facilities, she said, the over-projected enrollment fund is not their solution. The money would be better used for a short-term project with long-term effects — like the implementation of big charter school system reforms she is proposing this session.
She said a possible alternative money source for charter school facilities is grant-in-aid through the state. Last year the Legislature launched a pilot project of sorts to help two charter schools — West Hawaii Explorations Academy and Volcano School of Arts and Sciences — fund building projects.1
On Tuesday though — the same day McKeague and Roberts asked lawmakers to consider using the over-projection money for facilities — the state Office of Budget and Finance rejected the two schools’ grant-in-aid requests, because the schools did not yet have the full funding to finish the projects proposed.
Tokuda said she was disappointed about the rejections, and would look into them.
Meanwhile, it doesn’t look hopeful for the over-projection money to be used on facilities.
